Thursday, 1 December 2016

I hope you are all enjoying crafting and baking for Christmas...and maybe also find the time to check out our new "Anything Goes - Steampunk/Industrial" challenge over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges!

There's a huge bundle of inspiration waiting for you today as this month the whole team present their makes in one go (except my wondeful friend Kerstin, who will share her project with you a little later this month, so you have a bit of a reminder to play along with our challenge and by doing so maybe win one of our two prizes or make Top 5!). And we also have a wonderful new DT member to introduce to you! Yay!

This is my mixed media steampunk make for December:

I got this fab mechanical wing chipboard set from boozybear - one of our two prize sponsors. And of course it is the mechanical wing of a Christmas angel - just look at the wintery, frosty colours. ;)

But of course the quote on my canvas also is one I hope to be able to live by a bit better in 2017 - to spread my wings and try free myself a bit more and better from the burden challenge of my chronic autoimmune illness. It is hard to find the right balance...if I have too much action going on, the fatigue will take me down even more afterwards. If I try to play it safe and "stay calm" I feel my life is taken away from me by my condition. If I talk too much about it, it makes me feel even more ill than I actually am....and if I don't mention it at all, everyone expects me to be "available" at full speed and power (as my illness doesn't show on the outside...other than the annoying weight gain). So it is tricky to handle and finding that balance maybe even is the hardest part...but still...I hope to regain a bit of that lightness in thinking and acting...and letting go.

But enough earnest talk - being creative always is someting that lightens my spirit and/or makes me forget about pain or stress for a while. And this particular project totally drew me in during its making - which is the best thing that can happen, right?

I played around with loads of DecoArt media texture mediums....white Crackle Paste, white Crackle Paint, white Modeling Paste...just to name a few.

But let's go into detail:

I added a layer of Raw Umber acrylic paint to the pieces and let that dry.

Then I applied a coat of white DecoArt media Crackle Paint and put the pieces on top of our heating to speed up the drying process.

Once the cracks had appeared I glued the pieces together using matte Decou-Page.

Using a palette knife I scraped and dabbed on some white Modeling Paste to the points of the wings.

The dabbing motion of the palette knife created this fabulous texture:

White Crackle Paste was randomly spread across a canvas and the wing was put right on top. The Crackle Paste also works like glue - so once it had dried the wing stuck to my canvas properly.

Then I started adding some Stampendous mica flakes in different tones alongside several washes of various DecoArt media fluid acrylic paints like Quinacridone Gold, Burnt Sienna, English Red Oxide, Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide and Cobalt Teal Hue.

The flakes were added by applying white Gesso and/or matte Decou-Page with a brush and sprinkling them on. I used my fingertip to dab a Cobalt Teal Hue border around my canvas.

DecoArt Orange Flickr Metallic Lustre was added to the areas I had put the Modeling Paste on.

I stamped my quote with black archival ink onto a piece of protective paper and cut the words out. Then I glued them in place using matte Decou-Page and traced the outlines with a black watersoluble pencil. With a wet fine tip brush I "smudged" the black outlines to blend the words in with the background.

Et voilá!

Some close-ups of details I like...

...and the finished canvas:

And now I highly recommend you hop over to our challenge blog to get yourself a heavy dose of inspiration! Thanks so much for stopping by! Enjoy the advent season and I hope to meet you over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges soon!

Thursday, 17 November 2016

This month's theme is all about "Heartfelt Freedom and Festivities" and the teamies' makes for part two are meant to start the US Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations.

The challenge for our players is an "anything goes" - so don't be shy and play along! You could win a fab $50 voucher to spend at the Emerald Creek store!!!

My latest DT parcel held the fab Emerald Creek "Winter's Mistake" and "Fractured Ice" embossing powders and I knew instantly that I wanted to use them to create an icy and frosty winter scene in a turned around canvas!

This is how the Fractured Ice embossing enamel looks on plain white paper! Amazing, right?

And it also turned some die cut trees that I had first inked with green archival stamping ink into these awesomely spotted green tree line!
The three trees above were also blended with green ink and heat embossed with the Winter's Mistake embossing powder afterwards. I love both effects equally!

The dies I used for cutting the trees were the "Evergreen Trio" die from memory box and the Sizzix On the Edge "Tree Line" die. The snowflakes were die cut using the lawn fawn "Mini Snowflakes" die.

The canvas frame was first painted with whiteDecoArt mediaGesso and then given a coat of DecoArt media white Modeling Paste. I stamped into the modeling paste using some gorgeous stamps from Christmas stamp sets designed by Tim Holtz.

Once that had dried I applied several washes of DecoArt media fluid acrylic "Viridian" and dry brushed everything with white Gesso to highlight the raised areas - this way the texture from the stamped images and palette knife became more visible.

I also added some Winter's Mistake and Fractured Ice embossing enamels here and there.

The background inside the canvas was painted with white Gesso first and then given a thin layer of DecoArt media white Crackle Paste. I used the same "Viridian" wash to blend in the background with the frame and make the cracks more visible.

The die cut snowflakes and the metal charm snowflakes were heat embossed with Fractured Ice, Winter's Mistake and Hammered Metal embossing powders too. I wound some wire around the charms' loops and inserted them into some holes I had poked into the canvas frame.

Then I stacked my tree lines using sticky foam pads, glued on the heat embossed snowflakes and tied the metal band charm to the bottom of the canvas using thin rough string.

Done!

I hope you like my frosty little winter scene and are inspired to create your own! It surely was inspired by the enchanting and gorgeous winter-themed shadow boxes my wonderful and talented friend Kerstin from Scrapbook Dreams always creates! She is the master of textures with frosty bling and story telling and I will never even get close to the magic she creates in her makes!

And don't forget to check out my teamies' makes too! I promise you will love what you see when you hop over to Emerald Creek Dares! And don't forget to play along!!! I hope to see you over there soon!